I know this is only a temporary stop-gap measure, but the match() and

gvanrossum · gvanrossum · commit 1b6aecb08c54 · 2000-05-02T15:52:33.000Z
search() functions didn't even work because _fixflags() isn't
idempotent.  I'm adding another stop-gap measure so that you can at
least use sre.search() and sre.match() with a zero flags arg.
diff --git a/Lib/sre.py b/Lib/sre.py
@@ -31,7 +31,6 @@ def match(pattern, string, flags=0):
     return compile(pattern, _fixflags(flags)).match(string)
 
 def search(pattern, string, flags=0):
-    assert flags == 0
     return compile(pattern, _fixflags(flags)).search(string)
 
 # FIXME: etc
@@ -41,6 +40,6 @@ def search(pattern, string, flags=0):
 
 def _fixflags(flags):
     # convert flag bitmask to sequence
-    assert flags == 0
+    assert not flags
     return ()
 
